Am I in the right place?

[Kaeira]

So I am a first year graduate student in a social psychology MA/PhD, fresh out of undergrad. I've been having a variety of problems with graduate school that really just make me feel like I'm in the wrong place. First of all, I haven't really made friends in my program yet and it's already been an entire semester. It's been really difficult, because I was the only new social psych student, and all of the other social psych students are married and several years older than me. It's not that I have a problem with married people, it's just that I feel like I'm at a very different place in my life and while they have people to spend time with on nights and weekends I don't, and it makes me feel really lonely. The person who I stayed with when I interviewed here was really awesome, but he left the program before I got there. There are some other first year psych students, but I didn't have any classes with them last semester and I'm worried that by now they've all gotten a chance to know each other and it will be really hard for me to assimilate. And of course all of this is completely disregarding the fact that I really don't have time to socialize or have hobbies or anything else.

I'm also not really sure how much how well I'm getting along with my advisor. Most of the reason I came to this program was because he published a lot and was really an up and coming researcher in some areas of research I was interested in. But so far I feel like it's been even more intense than other advisors and programs would have been. I feel like I'm just constantly doing research and I don't have time for anything else. I have maybe an hour of free time every other night, and that's only if I do less work then I feel I should, and maybe a few hours on the weekends. And he's not the friendliest guy in the world either. I've really had not a lot of help from him or the other grad students as to what I should be doing and how I should be doing it. And my advisor has been kind of mean when I make tiny mistakes, despite the fact that I haven't really had any guidance at all. To top it all off, I don't know if I'm even really interested in the research I'm doing anymore or research at all. I don't know if these doubts are just due to my general unhappiness or if I really should just be doing something else.

At this point, I don't know whether or not this is just typical of graduate school or if I should change advisors, programs, or fields entirely. Can anyone give me some advice about this?

[fuzzylogician]

What you write sounds familiar; I think most (if not all) new grad students ask themselves these kinds of questions. I know I did.

There are several issues here that you may want to address. First of all, can you take classes with the other first-year students next semester? Make an effort to get to know them. It may depend on the particular department, but at least in my department (and actually in all other programs that I know anything about) we definitely make an effort to include new people in our group. Don't assume that the other people in your year won't welcome you. To the contrary: it's very easy to find things to talk about (complain, gossip about). Once you have a better social network, your situation will improve significantly. It's very hard to work all day and have no one to talk with, go out with, or even have lunch with. That alone is enough to make you feel like you're not doing well in your program. There are many things that you can do with friends from your department that don't take a lot of time - anywhere from lunch to a half-hour coffee-and-gossip break. I completely understand what you write about older/married people; they are in a different place in their life. If you can't find friends within your program, maybe seek out a club or some other on-campus activity? It's very important to have something else in your life beside your work.

now, in terms of your work, it sounds to me like two things are in order, but they are connected. it's all about expectations. Both on a personal level with your advisor and re: workload. You are working with an up-and-coming advisor, which I assume means that he doesn't have a great deal of experience guiding students. You may want to have a serious conversation with him about your expectations. If you don't feel that he is encouraging enough, let him know. It may be a bit awkward, but it's important to be clear about what kind of mentorship is useful to you. You may find out that he thinks that if he only comments on small stuff that means that you should understand that he is pleased with all the important stuff. Some people are naturally very sarcastic and may not even be aware that they are saying anything offensive. If you talk to him, you'll know better where you stand and then you can think again about whether or not your advisor is someone that you can work with for the next 4-5 years.

Another, more important issue, is dealing with the workload. Here again it's partly a matter of your expectations, and partly it's a matter of you making a very clear decision about how much you want to invest in your work. As long as you don't say anything, he may think that you are handling the workload. Or, he may just be (ab)using you and the fact that you suffer in silence. Either way, different people have different ways of solving this problem. I am the kind of person who has to be verbally clear about what is expected of me, so I will let a prof know if I think I'm assigned too much work and can't handle it (or if I could, but it would take up ALL of my time, which is more often the case). Other people I know just don't meet their deadlines. It's probably a much better way to go about it, if you can do it. Just start slowing down and being late. If asked, say it was too much work and you couldn't meet the deadline, or otherwise say nothing. Many times no one will even comment if you're just a few days late, and those few extra days can make a big difference.

At this point, before you try to actively improve your life, I would say you shouldn't be considering changing advisors or programs. The first semester is hard regardless, there are many adjustments to be made, especially if you came straight from undergrad. I would say it took me until (at least) the summer after my first year to find my stride. I think you need to develop a social aspect to your life and start better defining your work life in terms of how much you invest in it. After you do that, and find a rhythm that works for you, if you are still unhappy with the research after a while then you should start thinking about switching concentrations. First within your program, if possible (it'll be much easier), then maybe elsewhere. But right now I don't think you're there.

[Kaeira]

That is very wise advice. Thank you very much for your response!

It was funny, because I woke up this morning thinking that I really was more serious about transferring programs, but I think that reading your post made me re-consider, or at least wait on it. I think that you're probably right- I should try to get more of a social life and talk to my advisor about the problems I've been having before I just up and leave. It's just been really hard for me to figure out the right way of dealing with all of these things because I can't really talk to the other students in my program and feel like I can't really talk to anyone at all. It's been really isolating.

But I think at this point, it might just be that my general unhappiness from not having a social life and the general intensity of graduate school is seeping into the rest of my life. I really would like to talk to my advisor about expectations and everything, I'm just not really sure the right way of going about it. For example, he's showed up late to a bunch of meetings with me, keeps postponing editing papers I've written or papers we're co-authoring, never really gives me opportunities to be a second or third author on papers he's writing, and expects me to do everything perfectly but is rather harsh when I make a tiny mistake. I've heard from other graduate students that they've had similar experiences with him. He's also had one of his students change advisors and another drop out entirely. I guess I'm just really afraid to tell him all of this, because first of all I feel like maybe it's not my place to tell him how he should act, and secondly I'd be afraid I'd get really emotional and then he wouldn't take me seriously anymore.

Do you have any advice for how I should approach this conversation?

[LJK]

My thought is that right now is a good time in the year to bill such a conversation as a mid-year check-in/evaluation. If you bill the meeting to be about you, your progress, your strengths and weaknesses, your projects rather than his advising style, his strengths/weaknesses, etc. I think you could have a very productive conversation. Ask for feedback on lab work, writing papers, and anything else that you don't know exactly what he is thinking that is relevant. If you are annoyed by his tardiness for meetings or his slow editing, ask if there is any way to improve this (without mentioning annoyance per say... perhaps respect for his professorial busyness and desire to use every waking minute for research?). Could meetings be held in the lab so that you can work up until his arrival? For the editing issue, is there a time during the week that he usually works on editing that it would be ideal for you to have a draft to him by? Or would it be possible for him to reply to an email of a paper for editing with a guess of how long it will take him to get to it based on his current queue? Even though I am suggesting a few, I wouldn't go in to the conversation with a bunch of 'solutions' worked out that he might not be interested in conforming to set in your mind as The Solutions. Have your goal of the conversation to be aware of how he thinks you are doing and to advise him of things that are confusing/frustrating about your advising relationship. If he is open to finding solutions, yay! But if not, maybe he will at least cue you into how he thinks about these things so they become less puzzling and easier to work around on your own. You are only one semester in to a 4-5 year relationship.. it takes time to figure out how your working relationship will be best choreographed.

[fuzzylogician]

As LJK wrote, when you talk to your advisor, concentrate on presenting your perspective, not on criticizing his actions. It's a very good idea to approach this as a new-semester-evaluation-talk.

But before you have that conversation, I think you need to take a step back and do some thinking.

Decide how you want your work/life to look, and then figure out what would need to change in order to get to where you want to be. Don't talk to your advisor before you're very clear about what you want.

It's very hard to compare your work to others, especially when you're new and aren't very familiar with other first-year students' work. Having just started, already working with your advisor on co-authored papers is very good progress. There is another recent thread in this forum about someone who is upset about never being invited to write with their advisor, let alone in the first year. You should appreciate this fortunate aspect of your situation.. However, it may be that you've taken on too much work - what with starting a new program, taking classes and also working on papers. Although it's very hard to make this choice, you may need to decide to reduce your workload in some way - either by spreading your classes more or by withdrawing from some project or other that you are involved in (or, as I suggested before, by doing less work for those projects - either by officially asking to do less or by being late with your assignments; it seems like that is exactly what your advisor is choosing to do).

You can try and address your advisor's tardiness in roundabout ways. Is he late because some other particular meeting runs long just before yours, because he is coming from some other place, or is it just always the case that he is late for meetings? I'm afraid you can't change him, but you can ask for a longer meeting if you are constantly not getting through everything you want to because there isn't enough time left. You could perhaps change the location of the meeting, or you could ask him to come get you from your office/lab when he is done with the previous meeting and can start yours, so you don't have to waste time waiting for him.

Your advisor generally sounds like a very busy person. You and he may have unrealistic deadlines for yourselves for what needs to get done. Maybe part of adjusting your expectations should be deciding how long he takes to read your work and comment on it, or just giving you a time estimate so you can plan accordingly.

Since it's too late to reapply to new programs right now anyway, I think it'd be best for you to plan for trying to improve your current situation in the coming semester; you can think about reapplying in the summer, if things don't improve by then. Ideally you could spend this semester [a] meeting new people, getting better perspective on where you stand with relation to others in your department, and generally having a social life; deciding whether or not you can see yourself working with your advisor for another 4-5 years, and [c] getting to know other potential advisors within your program. If you do decide to transfer, changing advisors within your program would be the best course of action. Talk to the person who did this before you and get advice about how to approach that process.

For the actual meeting with your advisor: I find it helpful to play the whole conversation in my head several times, since I also tend to get emotional in these situations myself. I tell friends what I am concerned about - that way I practice parts of the conversation out loud; they help bring perspective and potential answers that I would want to prepare for. I also always wait until enough time has passed that I am no longer upset like I initially was about whatever the situation may have been, which also helps to bring perspective about what's important and what I should forget and let go. I always come with a piece of paper that contains a list of everything I want to say, with keywords highlighted. And, if I feel I may get too upset, I actually warn the other person that I'm upset and apologize that I may get emotional - but that I am being very serious.

I hope this was helpful. Good luck!

[starmaker]

You've already gotten some great advice here. Let me address the social side of things.

Look outside your program for a social life. In a non-academic job, it would be nice if you made real friends with some of your co-workers, but it would be quite reasonable, and in many ways preferable, to simply have pleasant, collegial relations with them, and to have your real, social, friends elsewhere. There's no particular reason that academia should be different.

Student activities might be a useful way to meet new people who aren't in your program. So might volunteer work. If you are religious, check out your faith community for potential friends (and if not, many universities have groups for secular students and many communities have some sort of organization for non-religious people). Your school's grad students' union/council might run social events for students across different departments. Don't write off undergrads - I had some grad friends as an undergrad and some undergrad friends as a grad. Don't write off the married people in your own program - just because they have someone to spend nights and weekends with, doesn't mean they don't want to bring other people over to socialize sometimes (trust me, I'm married, and I would be quite unhappy to have no social life outside of my marriage, and we invite people over probably once to twice a week). Plus, the married people might have friends who are single, who could become your friends.

If you live in a dorm, it probably runs social events. If you don't, your neighborhood might run occasional social events, or your school might have an off-campus students' group. At some universities (like my undergrad one), grad students can get free housing in undergrad dorms by performing a resident-assistant-like function, and this can be a good way to integrate yourself with a campus (and you might make friends with the other grad students serving this role).

I realize that you said:

And of course all of this is completely disregarding the fact that I really don't have time to socialize or have hobbies or anything else.

Make time. It's that simple. You are in for a long several years if you do not take back some control of your time (other people have mentioned some ways to do this). You are a student, not a serf. You are a whole person, not a machine for doing well in school. And believe me, when you hit those inevitable times when you feel like nothing's going right at school, having something else that you do to provide you with a sense of self-worth is invaluable.

[Kaeira]

Wow, thank you guys so much for taking the time to write out long, well-thought out replies to my post. Especially with the lack of a support network at school, it is really helpful to hear advice from fellow grad students.

As fuzzylogician mentioned, since the application period is over by this point, it's not really the time for drastic action, but more a time to see if I can have this kind of talk with my advisor and can change things to be the kind of environment I want to work in. I think the idea of a midyear check-in is a really good idea, because as you mentioned, it really isn't a good idea to approach it from the frame of you are doing something wrong. Although, do you think we'll still be able to discuss these issues that I'm worried about? Despite the fact that he's in psychology, my advisor really isn't the most socially perceptive person, and I could definitely see this conversation turning into him just criticizing me.

As for his tardiness and late paper-editing, I think the problem is more that he is super busy. One of the reasons I came to work with this advisor was because he publishes a LOT, and for going into academia in social psychology at least (I don't know how it works with other programs), publications are everything. I do realize that I am very lucky in that way, and perhaps compared to those people who's advisors won't let them in on any papers at all, my complaints might seem like not a big deal. But I'm just worried because it seems like he's helped his other students more with publications. I talked with his other graduate students and asked how many papers they worked on their first year. They mentioned that they didn't do a lot of first authoring, but our advisor often sent them methods sections or parts of papers to write so they could be second or third author. They also came in early (over the summer) to work on a book chapter with him. I was a little disappointed to hear this, because I've never been included in being asked to come on to a paper as a second or third author or anything like that. I came early to school as well to work on a paper with him and he basically just told me that he didn't have time to do it then and we would have to postpone it for several months. And now he's just taking a really long time to get back to me with a paper we're working on together, when he is the one who suggested we try to get it submitted by January 1st. Maybe it just sounds like I'm complaining now, but I've often heard that good advisors prioritize their graduate students' work, and it just really feels like my advisor isn't doing that. It seems like he doesn't really care that I'm there besides the fact that I just help him out with running his own studies. Is this typical of advisors or of new advisors (he's been a professor only for 3 years)?

As for the social advice, that was really helpful as well. I'm definitely not writing off possibilities of social events. I do spend time with some of my co-workers, but it's usually just in a large group, which can be isolating when it's all couples and then me. I've only ever been invited to hang out with one of them like one on one once, and it was kind of recently. I've sort of felt a little shy about inviting them to do something, because I don't really know the area and I'm new here, but I feel like I'm running out of options there. I definitely have been looking into student groups, though my University is not great about those- they have 0 graduate student groups and not a lot of undergraduate ones either. But I am still trying on that front- there's a couple more clubs that I plan on investigating next semester.

[LJK]

I'm finding it helpful/interesting to read through the archives of Female Science Professor, an anonymous physical sciences professor who writes about academia in all its aspects. You get her perspective but also a diverse set of perspectives from her many commenters. In particular, your issues about inequality of your professor's investment reminded me of this post:

https://www.blogger....574011310486264

In particular check out the comment by anonymous at 11/06/2009 02:25:00 PM and the subsequent reactions.

It is likely true that the students ahead of you in a new professor's lab matter more for his tenure prospects (presuming any look like they are going to finish what with the drop-out and the switcher). Whether that is the source of inequality that you are seeing is not clear, maybe he was given less of a teaching load at first or less service requirements as he got started (other things that FSP has blogged about) and he truly has less time now as well as more students to divide his advising time between. There are lots of possible reasons of why he is acting the way he is and an honest conversation is really the only way to know what is going on.

I think it is completely legitimate to ask what is going on with the publication that was supposed to get done by 1/1. You think he is slacking, but does he think you are slacking in some way? (I'm not saying you are, but sometimes we don't meet other people's expectations simply by not knowing what they are.) Is he just too busy? If he is too busy during the semester, does he concentrate on writing during breaks? If you know when he is likely to get to things, you can use that as a personal deadline to get things to him by. It might be that the particular paper you are on isn't a priority for him (in this scenario it is not you, it is the paper in comparison to other papers). It might be that he is prioritizing the students who are further along just because they need publications to go on the job market and you have more time to put things together. Whatever the reason for his behavior, I hope for your sake that he is able to evaluate himself as well as you rather than just putting everything on you. Try to frame your request for the mid-year check-in in terms of constructive criticism - what can you do better, if you are discussing how to do things in the future more than how things have been done in the past, you can propose things like having more communication about when he will be able to respond to you, etc. because it will help you do better (and him be a better advisor but you don't have to mention that part )

Good Luck!

Edited January 2, 2011 by LJK

[starmaker]

As for the social advice, that was really helpful as well. I'm definitely not writing off possibilities of social events. I do spend time with some of my co-workers, but it's usually just in a large group, which can be isolating when it's all couples and then me. I've only ever been invited to hang out with one of them like one on one once, and it was kind of recently. I've sort of felt a little shy about inviting them to do something, because I don't really know the area and I'm new here, but I feel like I'm running out of options there. I definitely have been looking into student groups, though my University is not great about those- they have 0 graduate student groups and not a lot of undergraduate ones either. But I am still trying on that front- there's a couple more clubs that I plan on investigating next semester.

Try inviting one or two of those couples over for dinner some evening - you don't need to know the area to do that. Or invite them to watch a movie and eat carry-out pizza, if you'd prefer. Or to drink beer and decompress after an exam.

They might not know the area either, if they're first-years. You could get together for an explore-the-town expedition some weekend.

Do you know any grad students who were undergrads at the same school? If there are any around (I know psych is less friendly toward "inbreeding" than the engineering and applied science fields that I'm more used to, so maybe there aren't), they're more likely to understand the campus culture and the town and to have a group of friends there already, and they might be able to help you out.

[UNCguy]

Wow, thank you guys so much for taking the time to write out long, well-thought out replies to my post. Especially with the lack of a support network at school, it is really helpful to hear advice from fellow grad students.

As fuzzylogician mentioned, since the application period is over by this point, it's not really the time for drastic action, but more a time to see if I can have this kind of talk with my advisor and can change things to be the kind of environment I want to work in. I think the idea of a midyear check-in is a really good idea, because as you mentioned, it really isn't a good idea to approach it from the frame of you are doing something wrong. Although, do you think we'll still be able to discuss these issues that I'm worried about? Despite the fact that he's in psychology, my advisor really isn't the most socially perceptive person, and I could definitely see this conversation turning into him just criticizing me.

As for his tardiness and late paper-editing, I think the problem is more that he is super busy. One of the reasons I came to work with this advisor was because he publishes a LOT, and for going into academia in social psychology at least (I don't know how it works with other programs), publications are everything. I do realize that I am very lucky in that way, and perhaps compared to those people who's advisors won't let them in on any papers at all, my complaints might seem like not a big deal. But I'm just worried because it seems like he's helped his other students more with publications. I talked with his other graduate students and asked how many papers they worked on their first year. They mentioned that they didn't do a lot of first authoring, but our advisor often sent them methods sections or parts of papers to write so they could be second or third author. They also came in early (over the summer) to work on a book chapter with him. I was a little disappointed to hear this, because I've never been included in being asked to come on to a paper as a second or third author or anything like that. I came early to school as well to work on a paper with him and he basically just told me that he didn't have time to do it then and we would have to postpone it for several months. And now he's just taking a really long time to get back to me with a paper we're working on together, when he is the one who suggested we try to get it submitted by January 1st. Maybe it just sounds like I'm complaining now, but I've often heard that good advisors prioritize their graduate students' work, and it just really feels like my advisor isn't doing that. It seems like he doesn't really care that I'm there besides the fact that I just help him out with running his own studies. Is this typical of advisors or of new advisors (he's been a professor only for 3 years)?

As for the social advice, that was really helpful as well. I'm definitely not writing off possibilities of social events. I do spend time with some of my co-workers, but it's usually just in a large group, which can be isolating when it's all couples and then me. I've only ever been invited to hang out with one of them like one on one once, and it was kind of recently. I've sort of felt a little shy about inviting them to do something, because I don't really know the area and I'm new here, but I feel like I'm running out of options there. I definitely have been looking into student groups, though my University is not great about those- they have 0 graduate student groups and not a lot of undergraduate ones either. But I am still trying on that front- there's a couple more clubs that I plan on investigating next semester.

Hi Kaeira,

How are things going? I also have a very rude adviser who constantly criticizes me. I was wondering if you ended up applying to transfer or what your plan is. One of my good friends transferred schools so I know a limited amount about it. Hope all is well.